Posted
by
samzenpus
on Sunday July 19, 2015 @07:30PM
from the watch-it-again dept.

Mark Wilson writes: Windows 10 has not even been released yet, but that's a perfect reason to start unearthing a few secrets. Over the coming weeks and months there will undoubtedly be an endless stream of tips, tricks, and tweaks to try out, but how's this for starters? Windows 10 has a secret screen recording tool that can be used to capture on-screen activity as a video file. Taking a static screenshot is very simple. You can either hit the Print Screen key, use the Snipping Tool, or turn to one of the countless screen capture tools out there — many of which are free. When it comes to capturing video, however, it's something of a different story. Before you splash out on a dedicated tool such as Camtasia, you might want to try out Windows 10's hidden tool. It's designed for gamers really, but anyone can use it. The Game bar is a toolbar which Microsoft meant for gamers to use to capture screenshots of their high scores, as well as video footage of their gaming skills. Despite the name, it is not limited to use within games

Both NVIDIA and AMD have methods of capturing directly on the GPU, making for a blissfully lag-free experience compared to, say, FRAPS.

Hopefully Windows has created a standard interface for these, and not just reimplemented FRAPS.

Nope, it's a service that is required to be running to stream video (NIVIDA), one of four I disable, making FRAPS the program of choice.

EVGA has PrecisionX which will do screen captures or snapshots, I've found disabling PrecisionX stops a lot of video problems, including screen freezings and games just going away, leaving one staring at the desktop.

Great, it uses less CPU power and disk space to create a horrible quality video that half of the time it manages to write a video without corrupting it. Again - lossy, low-bitrate H.264 compression. Unless your goal is create a crappy blurry video on YouTube (and for many gamers, I guess that is their goal), ShadowPlay is useless. I'll stick with the tool that works (and creates better quality videos) than the one that doesn't.

You're asserting your ignorance as a fact. Shadowplay defaults to 50mbps bitrates at 1080p 60FPS, that's hardly "horrible quality." Also, I have yet to see even one instance where it corrupted the captured video. You can always transcode the 50mbps video to something more reasonable in software afterwards if you feel like it, but when you're actually playing it makes sense to let the GPU handle the encoding as there's no drop in framerates, but with Fraps there most definitely is.

I've never used Fraps but I have played with Shadowplay and I have to say it worked way better than I expected. When I went back and watched the video it had created it actually looked better than what I remembered the gameplay actually looking like. Which is probably a result of being focused on gameplay elements at the time I was recording rather than watching for blur and other video artifacts. Anyways that is a much appreciated change from the free video recording applications I had used in the past whi

Actually, someone in the comments below the original article indicated that they couldn't use the feature because their hardware didn't meet the minimum specification. So, it may actually require a minimum level of GPU compliance. This would make sense, as this is specifically targeted at gamers and not a "general purpose" desktop recording system.

The feature is dual-purpose. In AMD's case, it was originally created to improve latency and quality of wireless display tech. That it worked for games too was just a happy coincidence they took advantage of a while later.

That's actually a bit surprising. Microsoft sure went to a lot of trouble with their precious 'protected media path', so if their own application is merrily recording a DRMed stream(as I believe Netflix is on all supported platforms); either they've screwed up or Netflix couldn't be bothered to use the feature. I imagine that re-compressed copies of streams aren't terribly high priority; but I would have imagined that they'd be contractually obligated to at least pretend to care.

Netflix probably didn't enable the full retard mode, because it would break things for a lot of people. Want to watch on a DVI monitor? Sorry, it doesn't support HDCP encryption like HDMI does. They will have just used the standard windows D3D surface method that foils normal screen capture apps.

Unfortunately for them Microsoft have created a tool that can capture D3D surfaces and encode them on the GPU, much like the XBone and PS4 do. Netflix appear to be stuck between a rock and a hard place until Microso

Hard to prove video with a photo but I included the thumbnail of the file, the file properties showing it was recorded using the x-box dvr and chrome, and it paused on VLC. I also picked a netflix show. It's about the most proof I can bring.

It will be somewhat useful for troubleshooting, but Windows 7 has had the Problem Steps Recorder (filename: PSR.EXE) for years now, and Microsoft has offered a screen recording tool since at least 2009 for download via TechNet [microsoft.com].

It will be somewhat useful for troubleshooting, but Windows 7 has had the Problem Steps Recorder (filename: PSR.EXE) for years now, and Microsoft has offered a screen recording tool since at least 2009 for download via TechNet [microsoft.com].

Regards,

Aryeh Goretsky

The Problem Steps Recorder is a boon to anyone who hates doing doco. One of the best new features of Server 2008.

Exactly! "This is hardly news in 2015" was my point; I just happen to use a Mac and it's been around for ages. Seems that Windows utility has been around for some time too although I'd never heard about it until reading this thread.

Some of my essential audio tools have already been reported not to work properly on Windows 10, so I'll be damned sure not to upgrade anytime soon. I have already removed the upgrade notification. [lmgtfy.com]

Are they legacy products or is there a chance the developers will update them to work?

This brings up an interesting question - what is the mechanism for people who are eligible for the free Windows 10 upgrade but want to hold off on the install (potentially past the free upgrade period?)

A screen-recording tool just needs to be able to serialize the stream that RDP uses to disk - very efficient, very conservative of space. I can't believe that the Linux RDP tools don't already do this.

[1] "Best" as in - works, works well, has low latency and the tools are easy to get hold of and set up.

NX or whatever it has evolved into was very good in terms of performance, raw X11 blows over a network (which is ironic given that's part of it's d

I really hope Lync screen sharing, WebEx and the like provide a way for those sharing their screens to know when the peer enables recording. I know there are still holes in that, but it scares me to think of the potential leaks that could be created in tech support scenarios.

This reminded me of a tool in Windows that's been around for a while. If you run "psr" from the Start menu or a Command Prompt, it opens up Problem Steps Recorder, a tool that can record where you click and type, what you type, and various comments. I've occasionally used it to record a series of steps to reproduce a bug so that I can send detailed instructions to the people who need to fix the bug.

Isn't that something? It should be easy enough to check for, yet buffer overflows are still very common.

Microsoft came up with an API to handle buffer overflows that take buffer descriptors [that have base/end/length] instead of mere pointers (e.g. memcpy --> memcpy_safe).

But, trying to retrofit that over a code base of tens of millions of lines of code isn't easy and has it's own set of problems for QA'ing the result. For example, suppose you do a retrofit for certain code sections, do a full QA. You may break every system in the world because your QA suite missed something. With Win10, hopefully, automatic rollback on recent changes will be part of the newer "continuous update" model. With that, the risk of adding some additional checking will be smaller, so MS will be encouraged to do more code review and cleanup.

Further, WinX, by architectural design and needless complexity, has many more avenues of attack than Unix/Linux/*BSD POSIX systems. Buffer overflow is but one, and it's the easiest to spot in a code review.

Case in point: Stuxnet

Before getting to the centrifuge controllers, stuxnet had to penetrate windows. It did so by putting attack code in a printer font. The WinX print spooler [inside the kernel] executed code in user space memory from ring 0. This is bad design for two reasons:(1) putting a print spooler in the kernel at all [on all other above systems, the spooler is just a utility].(2) Executing any code from user space memory by the kernel running at ring 0 [This is architecturally impossible by the other OSes]

This is [very old] legacy code from the MS/DOS days when there was no supervisor/user mode distinction [on an 8086]. In other words, they never bothered to change this in 20+ years. Contrast this to the fact that most Unixes back then used mc68000's which came out at the same time and did have supervisor/user modes baked into the hardware. None of the POSIX based systems have any way at all for the kernel to do what WinX was doing [the calldown to user space].

No, the mc68000 always had supervisor/user mode [I was the chief systems programmer for a startup company that designed/manufactured/sold 68000 microprocessor systems and I'm quite familiar with it]. It also had an external MMU chip, which was almost unusable in practical systems [you couldn't use just one--you needed many of them]. Most companies [mine and others (including Sun)] developed their own MMUs from FPGAs.

It had a 16 bit physical data buses, but logically [how a programmer saw it] was 32 bits.

there's shrewdness, where someone will intelligently verify someone before gradually trusting them

then there's a sort of toxic level of distrust which is not intelligent and is just as hobbling to your life as gullibility. even though those with toxic levels of distrust see themselves as somehow more intelligent than the cluelessly naive and gullible, they aren't really, they are the same level of foolishness which is unintelligent and ruins your life

Give me one good reason why I should assume that MS has the security of my data in mind and would not instantly and without thinking twice hand it over to anyone willing to throw money or the book at them.

Considering the exploit record of Microsoft Windows, I'd say his paranoia is quite justified.

.

Indeed, if only Microsoft were as paranoid about people exploiting vulnerability vectors into Windows.......

As unpopular as my post is going to get on such an anti MS and pro Linux site I have to say MS really did do a good job after the security Memo from 2004 starting with Vista in terms of security. I would rank it as one of the most secure operating systems behind OpenBSD and MVS as number 3.

Modern Windows has all the apis go through ACL to prevent bypasses that explains UAC prompts in Vista. It also now randomizes data in the ram to prevent injections via ASLR. It has a signed bootloader to prevent rootkits. It can now accurately separate storage vs execution data to prevent buffer overflows. It has kernel level sandboxing with low-rights mode which Chrome and IE use for default which severely limit FS and services access. Windows Server can be powershell only which can limit 90% of the exploits with GDI and excess services that no longer need to be patched and so on.

All the exploits you read are from Adobe and Java which due to XP compatibility can't use modern features such as low-rights mode due to people not wanting to change.

I am not saying it is an amazing OS but it is not WIndows 98 anymore where pointers and crashes were all over and all you had to do was put your code in a ram address where a known pointer would look and BAM 0wned!

Uhhh Windows has had Remote Desktop Protocol [wikipedia.org] for fourteen years now and we haven't been seeing any "strangers take over ur puter ZOMFG!" going on now have we?

Lets be clear all this is doing is taking the RDP that has been there since WinXP and saving to file instead of sending to another PC, that's it, that is all its doing. RDP has been around for ages, is solid, and nobody has been complaining about it, in fact many shops like mine use it every day to help customers via remote assistance [wikipedia.org].

A remote desktop connection is easily to spot and avoid. Even despite the horrible mess the MS RDP is from a security point of view. For a RD connection, I first of all have to reach your computer from the outside world. Meaning, I have to initiate the connection. Something that already fails to work on most private setups, let alone corporate networks. I would usually die no later than the router (in a private setup) or a relevant firewall (in a co

Calm down, Sparky! If MS or the NSA wanted to fuck with your computer, they'd use a sneaky backdoor/exploit into your system and then run whatever tools they wanted to, which would not include well-known tools, as they are easy to spot. You seem to be more paranoid than sensible.

YEAH! The current thread is about Windows 10! Name me one Windows 10 exploit that is currently out in the wild amongst active everyday users! Ha, you can't. Never mind the millions of exploits for previous versions, they don't count. They got eradicated in Windows 9! $$DATA

So your saying the built in screen recording tool is not the perfect app for use with the NSA back door. It really does make a lot more sense to build in the tools to be exploited than to try to sneak past the larger download to add in the required privacy invasive software. So how much were M$ paid to bundle it or did they do if for free, keeping in mind how greedy they are, I could not see them doing it for free. So can on can not the tool be completely uninstalled, actually deleted and not present at all and can upgrade be set to manual.

The NSA wouldn't bother back-dooring individual tools. They would just have MS insert a backdoor into the kernel and 0wn the entire machine that way. Then they can run their own screen capture code, as well as any other arbitrary code they like.

Why pay for multiple backdoors when a single one will work better anyway?

It's not the perfect app, though, as everyone knows it's there. There is no such thing as the perfect app, but perfect backdoor (through which actors put their unknown malicious app). If this hypothetical backdoor exists (still waiting for concrete evidence of that, by the way), then the NSA would simply use it to install their own screen-recording software, and get your goodies that way.

Come on, you can do better. I know bashing Microsoft is fun, but when you have to resort to childish hypothetical situ

1) If Microsoft wanted to include a secret NSA screen recording app they could hide it in the code and you would never know.2) If your'e worried about exploits then you should just worry about the fact that your GPU's drivers already offer this capability.3) Recording your screen is the most useless way to learn things about you that I can think of. If you have access to the system to such a level that you can execute arbitrary code it's far more effective to run a keylogger than a video screen system whi

... is also a "tad bit obvious", as every system reporting tool will gladly show you that your screen recording software is chewing up resources for no apparent reason. If the NSA wanted in to your machine they'd use a backdoor or exploit to gain access, then install their own software which you'd not recognise.

The question is whether there is an obvious non-removable transparent indicator that the system is running. If yes, then there is little to no threat of the system being used by malware/spyware. If no, then sooner or later it will be used as such.

Not to mention that Windows has long had the ability to capture the screen by pressing PrtScr to save the screen to the clipboard and in Windows 8 you can press Win+PrtScr to write out the screen directly to an image file.

Putting spyware in routers going overseas, and the key word here is overseas, is what a foreign intelligence service does to fulfill the mandate of their agencies. Clandestine foreign security and intelligence agencies across the world return the favor by doing everything they can possibly do to collect military, political, and industrial information from the US. The US Constitution and Bill of Rights do not come into play outside of US sovereign territory. And no one has ever found any government mandated

The US Constitution and Bill of Rights do not come into play outside of US sovereign territory.

Do you have any justification for this? The Constitution grants specific powers to the government and explicitly protects some specific rights of the people. Nowhere does the Constitution mention that the government is granted infinite power outside of US borders.

I wonder where the idea comes from that US government agents, acting under their government authority, are suddenly free of all restrictions once they leave the country. It seems preposterous to me.

I don't understand why people think this sort of thing doesn't happen. It has been *publicly disclosed* that this level of spying takes place. The NSA was caught red-handed putting spyware in the firmware of routers being sent overseas...why in the world wouldn't they partner with Microsoft to inject spying software into Windows?

It would be naïve to think that NSA do not try something like this. But what would Microsoft gain? They would risk their entire revenue, for what? Favors of the NSA? Microsoft - and any other vendor with business in US - will have to comply with lawful orders. Unfortunately, FISA decisions are not public. But Red Hat or any other vendors would have to comply with the same FISA orders.

That's a fair point, but it's also true that as someone reasonably careful about security I have had far, far more downtime over the years due to bad Windows updates than I ever have due to intrusions.

The compulsory updates alone make Windows 10 a non-starter for me, even if I saw anything else that might make me want to upgrade.:-(

They'll creatively find a way to let you have a genuine, activated supported Windows after you install a warez Windows 10 pro from a random torrent site.

I first read your first sentence the other way around : I had far more downtime due to intrusions than to Windows updates. The one that bit me was upgrading to Internet Explorer 6 on a Windows 98SE installation, which made the OS completely unusable (no big deal as I was used to boot under DOS, load smartdrv and run the setup from D:\WIN98 on the other hard

Yes they are, at least as currently announced. Unlike Home, with Pro you get to delay updates for a few months if you want by following the Current Branch for Business, but beyond that, if you don't install all the updates then you lose security updates too.

You will need the Enterprise edition if you just want to apply security updates and not be forced to update other parts of the system at all.

Well, one unwelcome trend more recently is for software updates that actually remove or break functionality, or indeed the entire system. This has certainly happened several times with Windows updates, and other vendors have screwed up similarly (ask anyone who was using -- or rather, trying to use -- Creative Cloud a few weeks ago).

Another unwelcome trend is abusing the software update process to push entirely separate software. Windows update has been trying to get me to install various other Microsoft pr

If you want to be taken seriously as an OS provider, you have to provide security updates for a reasonable period after someone installs your system, but everything else can and should be separate. They clearly can do it, because the Enterprise edition will.

Of course they can do it, but it might not be in their best interest to do so...

You say "to be taken seriously"... I would submit that > 90% desktop OS market is "serious", and that they are working to keep that, thus the free upgrade to 10.

In return for that free upgrade, they want a few things, like always on updates.

I do see the downsides, such as breaking things or removing functionality... but I get the upside... WAY too many people didn't update XP often enough and security on the web suffered f

in10 looks like a real joy.. Mandated Updates No MediaCenter Now this Screen Recording Tool

Microsoft has long had RDC, and they could read anything important you were doing with your PC (not direct GPU access) anyway if you had it open and you assume they had a back door into it. You're always in the position of having to trust the maker of your OS, unless it's you.

Here's a secret for you, they already have a system built in to transmit your desktop to another PC, it's called RDP and been there a while. Being able to record it to disk instead isn't exactly earth shattering. But that aside, this isn't exactly the latest blockbuster movie so what's the hurry? You've got a year and by then we'll have actual facts and experiences. I'll be updating my laptop since it's at 8.1 and it probably can't get any worse while my desktop remains at 7 until further notice.

How do you get out of bed in the morning knowing that the NSA is tracking you by satellites and regulating your bowel movements?

But yet aside from your insane fear of being alive. I don't see the problem with mandating updates for home users who need it most, not paying some stupid license fee to kill off a subproduct that borderline no one used, and providing a tool that gamers have been wanting.

Yep what a turd it is going to be.

By the way do you know your ISP recorded you saying this? You may want to burn

yep, better rip that t shirt off and replace it with your tin foil hat. If they wanted to remotely monitor you they have had the ability to do that for the last 2 decades, nothing really new here except a usable interface for users. The forced updates is only for home edition, which in my opinion is a long overdue addition, anyone serious about their IT setup is either not using windows or at least not using home edition.

Additional: I do agree though that removing media center was a dick move. One that seems idiotic given the small devices and the increasingly common appearance of computers in the living room.

Never used Windows media center, had used the PS3 till it quit, now I use a spare laptop and VLC connected to the HDTV, which I control with an very old trackmouse (Turbo Mouse Pro Wireless). The distance the mouse works across is really what makes it all work out. Sure beats streaming to the PS3.

Yeah who wants to bet this can be activated remotely....Win10 looks like a real joy.. Mandated UpdatesNo MediaCenterNow this Screen Recording Tool.The Exploits are going to be really interesting

Windows screen capture, don't need it, being a gamer I've always had Fraps at the press of a button. I do wonder how this will affect alt+prtscr (only the selected window). As far as I'm aware Fraps has never been exploited. But there is no indication it's recording and I have many games recorded because of that, only when I get an out of disk space do I clue in.

Yet on the other hand, I get some of my better (Youtubeable) selections when reviewing what I hadn't intended to capture.

I'm running the insider preview on a Vaio that has excellent Win 8.1 support, save for two devices that only have Win 8 drivers. Where I could not find a Win 10 driver, the Win 8.1 drivers work. Where a Win 8.1 driver doesn't exist, the Win 8 drivers work. No stability issues and the hardware works just fine. I don't think you'll have a problem, MS hasn't changed their driver architecture since 8 came out and, even then, they only changed a couple subsystems, so most Win7 drivers should even still work. Of

Given how bad the stock Intel and nVidia drivers make my Vaio Flip 15 function compared to the modified Sony ones, I'm pretty worried about upgrading to Windows 10. Drivers aren't going to be available until November according to Sony - http://esupport.sony.com/US/p/... [sony.com] - because mine came with 8 (not 8.1) preinstalled, even though 8.1 was out at the time.

I'm running the Win 8 nVidia drivers from Sony on my VPCF232FX with no issues. Have you tried that? Win 10, combined with Apple's change in direction over the past 3-4 years, is making me start seriously considering coming back to Windows. I switched to Mac a few months after Win 7 came out, after I started working for a Mac dev shop, and haven't looked back once until I installed the Win 10 preview. Loving it. I did glance at 8 and 8.1, but wanted to blow my brains out after 5 minutes of using either of th

I'm pretty sure this stupid hybid GPU system is the reason I need Sony-specific drivers and the Intel/nVidia default graphic drivers just make things run super super slow. I do suspect the current 8/8.1 drivers will work just fine on 10 though, but Sony's official position is to not install Windows 10 until after November right now.

And for a production or primary system, they're spot-on. But this is Slashdot, who here only has one computer? I threw it on my Vaio because it's the slowest machine I could find in my stock that wasn't already in use. I have to say, it freaking' screams compared to XP, 7, 8 (I skipped 8.1 because 8 was so bad I ended up switching platforms on that machine briefly, before retiring it), Ubuntu, hackintosh'd OSX, or even Haiku on the same machine. Microsoft hasn't impressed me since Win 7, and I was only mild